In some of the instances, where the deaths are scattered a little
further from the rest on the map, the malady was probably contracted at
a nearer point to the pump. A cabinet-maker, who was removed from
Philip’s Court, Noel Street, to Middlesex Hospital, worked in Broad
Street. A boy also who died in Noel Street, went to the National school
at the end of Broad Street, and having to pass the pump, probably drank
of the water. A tailor, who died at 6, Heddon Court, Regent Street,
spent most of his time in Broad Street. A woman, removed to the hospital
from 10, Heddon Court, had been nursing a person who died of cholera in
Marshall Street. A little girl, who died in Ham Yard, and another who
died in Angel Court, Great Windmill Street, went to the school in
Dufour’s Place, Broad Street, and were in the habit of drinking the
pump-water, as were also a child from Naylor’s Yard, and several others,
who went to this and other schools near the pump in Broad Street. A
woman who died at 2, Great Chapel Street, Oxford Street, had been
occupied for two days preceding her illness at the public washhouses
near the pump, and used to drink a good deal of water whilst at her
work; the water drank there being sometimes from the pump and sometimes
from the cistern.
The limited district in which this outbreak of cholera occurred,
contains a great variety in the quality of the streets and houses;
Poland Street and Great Pulteney Street consisting in a great measure of
private houses occupied by one family, whilst Husband Street and Peter
Street are occupied chiefly by the poor Irish. The remaining streets are
intermediate in point of respectability. The mortality appears to have
fallen pretty equally amongst all classes, in proportion to their
numbers. Masters are not distinguished from journeymen in the
registration returns of this district, but, judging from my own
observation, I consider that out of rather more than six hundred deaths,
there were about one hundred in the families of tradesmen and other
resident householders. One hundred and five persons who had been removed
from this district died in Middlesex, University College, and other
hospitals, and two hundred and six persons were buried at the expense of
St. James’s parish; the latter number includes many of those who died in
the hospitals, and a great number who were far from being paupers, and
would on any other occasion have been buried by their friends, who, at
this time, were either not aware of the calamity or were themselves
overwhelmed by it. The greatest portion of the persons who died were
tailors and other operatives, who worked for the shops about Bond Street
and Regent Street, and the wives and children of these operatives. They
were living chiefly in rooms which they rented by the week.
The following table exhibits the chronological features of this terrible
outbreak of cholera.
=TABLE I.=
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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